I parked near the grocery entrance and went inside to do my shopping. Maybe I would just buy a few things and then drive home again. Probably that was all I could do, anyway. Just because he listed the store as his address didn't mean he actually lived there. Obviously, it was a front. He wasn't likely to be snoozing in a tent in the camping supplies aisle.
However, I did find myself in the sporting goods section of the store, but not because I was looking for him. I had been meaning to buy an emergency flashlight since I moved into my apartment. It was the kind of apartment that lent itself to electrical disasters and a girl could never be too prepared. Just to be sure, I peeked inside the single display tent. No one was sleeping in there. Of course. Because the whole bounty hunting thing was nonsense, and Drew Freeman was nonsense, and Chantelle was right about all of it, and I needed to move on.
But then I got to the checkout and paid in crisp twenties, and I still had a bunch of twenties left over. Those were bounty hunting twenties, and surely there were more where they came from.
It couldn't hurt to drive around a little and keep an eye out for a big black Jeep Rubicon.
I found it near the loading docks. And there was Agent Drew Freeman, still all in black, even bigger than I remembered, talking to some skinny girl in a hoodie.
He looked in my direction, and recognition crossed his face immediately.
The girl disappeared. Poof. She was gone. Maybe she'd run really fast or ducked behind the car, but I really didn't think so. I was pretty sure she literally disappeared.
The bounty hunter looked to where she'd been standing and sighed. His big shoulders moved up and down like glaciers rolling with the ocean waves.
For a moment, the reasonable part of my brain almost managed to take control. Reasonable Olivia would have put the car in reverse, backed away, gone home, put her groceries away, and never given another thought to vanishing girls and foul-smelling skeleton scarecrows walking the streets in plain sight or the people who hunted them.
The moment passed.
When I got out of the car, Gigantor crossed his arms over his barrel of a chest and watched me approach without doing a thing to make it less weird.
"This is my karmic reward for cutting you in? Doesn't seem fair. The Universe mocks me."
I fiddled with the keys in my hands to burn off a bit of my internal energy, lest it cause me to spontaneously combust. That felt like a real possibility. "I want to know more about what you do."
"No. You already know more than you should."
"Why? Why not just tell people the truth? We'll assimilate."
His mouth twisted into what might have been his version of a smile. "You survived a pandemic during which folks suggested vaccines contain microchips, and you've heard politicians blaming Jewish space lasers for the effects of global climate change. If you honestly think humans would assimilate, you're too stupid to bother with."
I sputtered something about clear and consistent messaging, but it was hard to talk with him giving me the, I think you're an idiot look.
"Go home. Enjoy your little windfall. Forget last night ever happened."
Yes. Because last night was the kind of thing a person could forget on command, not the kind of thing that stayed with them in nightmares long after they'd grown old and senile and forgotten everything else.
"I helped you." Good lord. That sounded pathetic, even to me.
"And I thanked you."
"I'll keep pestering you." I gestured to the empty spot where the disappearing girl had stood. "That's bad for business, right? Better to have me working with you than against you."
He ran a ham-like hand over his huge face. "Fine. Get in the car."
Really? It was that easy? The urge to laugh and say never mind erupted like a volcano inside me. "Maybe I should —"
Neither one of us ever learned what the next harebrained statement to come out of my mouth was going to be because he picked me up by the back of my coat like I was a kitten and stuffed me in the rear of his car.
I protested loudly.
He ignored me.
Since my best friend was a cop, I'd seen the backseat of a police cruiser before. This car shared some similarities. No locks or handles on the inside. A divider that separated the front and back of the car. That was pretty much where the likenesses stopped, and some serious differences started. The divider appeared to be made of solid metal with the same heavy tarnish as my grandmother's sterling silver candlesticks. There was no seat. Just an empty space with four machinery eye bolts on the floor. I could see nothing more than vague shapes and motion through the nearly black windows.
For now we see through a glass darkly, I thought. First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. It seemed like a great time to review some things I'd learned in church. For instance, how to repent and gain entrance to Heaven.
Certain that pounding on the divider would get me nowhere, I scooted so my back pressed against the side of the vehicle and braced my feet on the floor so I wouldn't get thrown around every time my captor took a turn too fast. Which was every time he took a turn. And there were an absurd number of turns between where we'd been and where we were going.
Maybe that was intentional. Anybody could keep track of two or three lefts and rights. Maybe some people could even estimate the distance between them. If he didn't want me to find this place again, he might be trying to confuse me.
It was working.
But that was good news. If he was thinking about my future actions, that meant he intended me to have a future.
I still had my phone, but when I pulled it from my pocket and looked, I had zero bars. Even Google maps couldn't find me. I typed out an SOS message to Chantelle. Maybe it would get picked up and sent when I got out of the car.
Then I erased it. He probably wasn't going to kill me, and it would be super embarrassing to have half the police department swarming down on the guy who was just answering the questions that I'd hunted him down to ask.
I typed a different message.
Call me after you put the baby to bed.
By the time she got him settled, it would be after nine. If she couldn't get ahold of me, she'd keep trying, and if I didn't show up at work, she'd know it. At that point, I'd be okay with her sending in the entire National Guard if need be.
After maybe twenty minutes or so, the car stopped, and the bounty hunter opened the door for me.
I climbed out with zero grace and found myself in a parking garage. Fewer than half the spots had cars in them. All the cars were black with dark, tinted windows. "Well, this is not creepy in the slightest," I said.
"You wanted answers. You ought to learn to be more careful what you wish for." He started walking. "Come on, then."
Cameras with blinking red lights followed our progress to an elevator with no buttons. It opened as we approached, revealing an interior with the same crappy tarnish as the inside of the car.
"Why is everything silver?"
"Silver's helpful in my line of work. You ever read a book?" The doors closed and we descended, though there still weren't any buttons.
"That's very rude," I pointed out.
He glared at me.
I shut up.
The doors slid open to an empty twelve by twelve room with a single thick-paned window covered in a grid of silver and a silver door. An older person, maybe sixty, with a beehive hairdo, bright blue eyeshadow, and a five o'clock shadow sat on the other side. Their lips moved, and from a speaker above our heads, a warbly smoker's voice asked, "Who's your date, Moose?"
"Moose?" I grinned.
He glared at me.
I stopped grinning.
"She wants to talk to Nick," the bounty hunter said.
"Why does Nick want to talk to her?" the old person asked.
"She's good for a laugh."
Beehive snorted. It sounded like a bullfrog, choking on a fly. "You know Nick, always looking for a laugh. She need to be wiped? This a problem?"
Moose peered down at me. "Let's let Nick decide."
Cold sweat trickled down my sides. Seemed like I should talk but one hundred percent of my mental resources were devoted to not freaking the hell out.
Beehive reached for something I couldn't see, and the door popped open a crack.
"Go on," the bounty hunter said. "Open it and go inside the security check."
"Alone?" I might have squeaked a little when I said the word.
He shrugged. "It's like airport security. You got to go one at a time."
"Airport security?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Exactly the same?"
He shrugged again. "More or less."
With a significant amount of concentration, I made my left foot move forward, and then my right. They carried me along until I got to the door. I pulled, expecting it to be heavy, but it swung easily on well-oiled hinges, granting me admission to a much smaller, equally plain room with another door on the other side. When I'd stepped all the way inside, it clicked shut behind me.
I might have gasped.
I certainly didn't scream. I'm not much of a screamer.
Well, maybe I screamed a little.
For the first five seconds, nothing happened. Then the wall to my left started buzzing with electricity. Little blue arcs popped and snapped. I put maximum distance between myself and the wall of death by pressing my body against the opposite wall, but as soon as I did, the electricity stopped. Blinding bright light shone from every side. I covered my eyes with both hands and still saw a wall of red and then that was gone as quickly as the other had been. A fine mist of water fell from the ceiling onto my head.
"Hey!" I didn't exactly mean to yell, but the water was cold.
The second door popped open. I thought that was the goal all along, but once it happened, some doubts crept in. Just a few. Thousand.
Upon stumbling forward, I found that this new section of wherever we were reminded me a lot of City Hall. Institutional gray paint on everything and cheap floor tiles with little scarlet flecks of color. It would be easy to clean, and stains would not readily show. Fluorescent lights buzzed brightly overhead. A faded, yellowing poster on the wall showed a young woman in a red peasant dress, gazing down lovingly at her enormously pregnant belly. Smoking is bad for you AND your baby.
The person with the beehive was leaning over a half-wall. A long, skinny cigarette dangled from between their equally long, skinny fingers. Glittery purple nail polish sparkled in the bright light. "Sign in." They handed me a clipboard with boxes for people to print and sign their names. Whoever had been there before me, their names were now crossed off with black marker.
As I moved to do as they'd asked, the silver door swung shut.
By the time I'd finished, it had opened again, and there was Agent Drew Freeman with little water spots on his jacket.
"Airport security, eh?"
He shrugged. "More or less."
He led me down a short hallway with a door on each side and one on the end. Normal doors, not silver doors. He knocked on the one on the left and from the other side, we were told to come.
What was inside shocked me far more than getting doused with water as a security measure.